Yesterday we read that a young man of 21 years was gunned down in the city of Schiedam in the Netherlands. The fact that he was dark complexioned, and ethno-racial profiling among Dutch police officers in the Netherlands is condoned as an unfortunate security measure and have caused many activists throughout the Kingdom of the Netherlands to argue that this is one of the outcomes of a situation where it has become politically suspect to say that Dutch racism is unacceptable!

In this contribution, the staff of the University of St. Martin (USM) seek to say the new politically suspect as loud as possible: Dutch racism is unacceptable! “Sticks and stones may break our bones, but words can never hurt us.” Whoever wholeheartedly believes that this saying holds all the time, and in every occasion, is either lying to themselves or not part of the human species. The fact of the matter is that words like stones can lead to suffering. It is true that the hurt produced by words is of a different kind—psychological rather than physical—but a hurt it is nevertheless. And we remain silent when listening to these words, forgetting that these words can lead to actions.